Author Archives: thezman

The Death Of Grammar Ronin

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One of the things that comes with writing for a public audience in the digital age is the editor without portfolio. This is the person who roams the internet looking for spelling errors, punctuation mistakes, and grammar issues. There are many of these people, as the comment section of every internet post has at least one comment about a typo or alleged improper word choice. They are like the samurai without a master in feudal Japan, except they wield the blue pencil instead of a sword.

Soon, of course, they will be replaced by AI. It will not be long before the browsers simply rewrite your text in the period between when you hit submit and the text commits to the website. The robots will patrol the internet like the grammar ronin of this age but do so with a speed that the grammar ronin cannot match. Imagine a terminator sent back to seventeenth-century Japan to battle Miyamoto Musashi. By the looks of it, the days of the grammar ronin are numbered.

At least it seems that way if you assume there is only one way to construct a sentence or that the rules of grammar are iron laws of grammar. That is often how the grammar ronin look at language and writing. The rules of grammar are not merely guides to facilitate clarity but laws that must be ruthlessly enforced. Even if the grammar rule no longer works for a modern audience, the grammar ronin insist that it must be followed lest chaos be unleashed on humanity.

It turns out that this is where AI disagrees with the grammar ronin. If you compose an essay and feed it into each of the AI, asking for corrections of spelling and grammar, the result will be different from each AI. If you submit the output of one into another, it will rewrite the text for what it claims is clarity and convention. You can create a game of telephone with the AI editors, and when you get to the last one and submit it back to the starting AI, the result is nothing like where you started.

It seems that the robot editors cannot agree on the rules. The reason for that is the AI learns on the mass of text made available to it. Once the robot is seeded, it then continues to build its knowledge based on available information from the internet and what has been fed to it by users. What we call AI is actually a massive probability calculator that quickly returns the most likely answer to the user query, based on the data that has been made available to it.

This is why the results from each AI are slightly different when they are asked to edit the exact same text. There are small differences in its massive data sets, so the probabilities are slightly different. Ask each AI to add simple numbers, and the results are uniformly the same because probability plays no role in the result. Two plus two equals four for all possible values of two. Ask each AI to edit this paragraph, and the range of possible answers is quite broad.

That is because those laws of grammar that the grammar ronin enforce are not laws after all but merely a set of conventions. In fact, what we think of as the rules of grammar are mostly the result of the printing press. Formalizing the language was a natural consequence of the mass production of text. Printers needed to be trained, and therefore it made sense to have a common set of rules. It is how we got the word stereotype, for example.

Of course, the reason we have things like grammar rules, punctuation, fixed definitions, and formal spelling of words is clarity. Many of the punctuation marks we commonly use were relatively late additions to our language. They were created by monks and scribes to make their lives easier. Dictionaries were created to make written communication easier. The iron laws of grammar and spelling are not iron laws after all but things we invented as needed.

This is where AI can be liberating. What the robots can do for the writer is offer many ways to phrase something and then let him select that which fits his style or that he thinks gets his point across the best to the human reader. At the same time, it can also allow the writer to break convention by seeing the conventional ways AI presents the text and then deliberately choosing an unconventional approach. Creative writers can use AI to enhance their creativity.

On the other hand, when a pusillanimous popinjay takes issue with a point a writer is making but is unable to follow the logic that reaches that conclusion, so he attacks the grammar of the writer, the writer can simply point to the terminator and say, “take it up with my editor.” Having AI as an editor provides an authoritative defense against this sort of pedantry that is popular with the sophists. In a way, AI can become something like a universal style guide for the digital age.

It is not all rainbows and puppies. The grammar police have drained a lot of the life from the written word, and AI will help them bleed it white. In time, most people will rely on AI to write their text, and that means it will narrow to the point where most writing reads like the user manual for your toaster. This will also make stupid people seem less stupid, which is a great danger to society. This is the problem with politics. It is dominated by loquacious simpletons.

The main loser in the AI revolution will be the grammar ronin. Soon, they will not be able to find text that violates their interpretation of Strunk and White. If they persist, the robots producing the text will simply disconnect them from the internet, leaving them to roam the countryside with a blue pencil in search of bits of paper to edit. The era of the grammar ronin is coming to an end. He will be defeated by the thing that made him possible at the dawn of the internet: technology.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Old Lessons

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Wednesday, April 23 was supposed to be a big meeting of Western countries and Ukraine in London where the Trump administration would make its final push for peace to end the war in Ukraine. The meeting was canceled due to the Ukrainians announcing in advance that they were not interested in any deal that would require them to make concessions. This prompted Marco Rubio to cancel the meeting, at least the portion involving decision-makers from the administration.

The lead-up to this now-canceled meeting has been a microcosm of how the Western political system now operates. For example, the period before the meeting featured stories in prominent nodes of the Western information control system about the secret details of the Trump plan. The sources for these stories were never mentioned, most likely because they did not exist. Instead, it was members of the Kagan cult, former Biden people, or schemers in the British government.

It was clear that these stories were coordinated as they all featured the same narrative and much of the same language. For example, they dusted off the old 2024 narrative of a freeze along the front line, something Russia has always rejected as both unacceptable and impossible to implement. The stories also all framed the deal as a major concession by Putin, the subtext being that he is now desperate for a way out of the war he started for no reason at all.

One point of these stories is something seen constantly in the West. There is the belief among the managerial elite that they can meme things into reality. If they just pack enough versions of their desired truth into the information control system, at some point this becomes reality. This has been repeatedly seen with the war in Ukraine, but it has been a feature of every major event. During Covid, they operated as if the news stories they made up were true for a couple of years.

One possible explanation for this is that a key pillar of the managerial state is the assumption that people respond to information, so if one controls the information, one controls the people. Since another pillar of the managerial state is that reality is made by people, it follows that one can control reality, or at least the perception of reality, by controlling the people through control of the information. The old expression, perception is reality, has become an article of faith among the elites.

Another part of this story illustrates how Western elites are only capable of thinking one move at a time. The reason for the media campaign was that they wanted the Russians to reject the deal, so they framed it as negatively toward them as possible, assuming the Russians would publicly respond. There was no thought given to the possibility of the Russians remaining silent. They simply assumed it was inevitable because this was a pleasing narrative to them.

This meant there was no backup plan. Instead, they had to have Zelensky preemptively reject the deal to avoid a public catastrophe. This last-minute cancellation is about buying time, which is another feature of managerialism. Western elites now operate as if time is always on their side. If they cannot shape reality to their liking now, then they just need to wait until reality comes to its senses. In the case of Ukraine, they remain sure they can outlast the Russians.

This sense of time probably stems from the fact that managerialism is a world measured in process rather than tangible accomplishments. Normal people measure their lives by what they have done. The managerial class measures their lives by the networks and processes in which they are a part. There is never any pressure to do anything in this world, so there is no need to worry about time. There can always be another meeting to discuss the things discussed at the last meeting.

This sense of timelessness has infected their approach to Trump. In his first term, the plan was to put the brakes on everything and wait until he either quit under relentless pressure or was removed. When he refused to go away, they peppered him with lawsuits, figuring time was on their side. Now in his second term, the court system is tasked with throwing sand in the gears to wait out Trump. The same thing is happening with the Ukraine war. It is endless stalling.

This is what gives the West the same feel as pre-revolutionary France. The ruling elite of France assumed they had time, which allowed them to avoid dealing with the serious problems facing the system. One reason for the radicalization of the masses during that time was the sense that no one in charge cared about the growing problems because no one could see any action to address them. The apparent indifference to what was happening became part of the indictment.

A similar situation happened at the end of the Soviet system. Gorbachev was something like Jacques Necker, in that he was in his position to fix the problems of the system, but the system refused to be fixed. His failure set in motion the process that toppled the Soviet system. Similarly, Trump exists because of systemic failure with the expectation that he can fix the system. Like the reactionaries of old, the managerial elite assumes it can wait him out.

Historical analogies are never perfect, and that is true here. The French elite, for example, understood the system’s problems. These were mostly smart, educated men with a deep knowledge of the system. The modern managerial elite is populated by mediocrities skilled only in the sort of scheming that is the basis of drama. They also possess a stunning lack of self-awareness. The people thinking they just need to wait out Trump also think they are loved and adored by the masses.

Wars tend to be what break dysfunctional political systems. That may be the case with the Ukraine war. Everyone assumes Trump lacks the resolve to walk away from this situation and leave the Europeans to work it out with the Russians. If he walks away from Project Ukraine, the managerial elite of the West will have a chance to learn that they cannot meme reality into existence and time is not on their side, or they will cling to these beliefs as they head to the dustbin of history.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Girl Boss

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If you consume any of the content from Hollywood produced in the last decade, you no doubt are familiar with the concept of the girl boss. This is now the main character in almost every film and television show, even creeping into video games. These days, gaming is as much about narrative as gameplay, and anywhere there are narratives being constructed or undermined, you will find girl boss. This character has even jumped into the pseudo-reality of the public square.

As usual, the Democratic Party is leading the way. Versions of girl boss are turning up in their response to what is happening in Washington. Ocasio-Cortez is waddling around the country doing the girl boss act in the hopes of running for the party nomination in 2028 and perhaps becoming the ultimate girl boss. Jasmine Crockett is making a name for herself as the black version of girl boss. This is when girl boss pretends to be a character on a daytime trash television show.

Even the old gals are getting in on the act. Elizabeth Warren no longer pretends to care about “working people,” whatever that means these days. Instead, she is doing her version of girl boss. She regularly turns up on social media explaining how things must be done, or she will call the manager. The old gal version of girl boss still has those vestiges of the Karen character that entertained and amazed during COVID. The Karen role was something of a proto-girl boss.

It is hard to know if this character started in the make-believe world of narrative content or if the creators of narrative content borrowed from reality. The content production mines have been run by women for a while now, so maybe the presence of girl boss simply reflects the creeping reality of girl boss. Like a terrible rash or a fungus, girl boss is slowly taking over everything. The reason girl boss is a type is because girl boss is springing up everywhere in late-stage America.

A good starting point for understanding this new character in the public square is New Hampshire congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. She won her seat in the 2024 election, defeating a libertarian goofball in the general election. Ms. Goodlander has immediately set about making a name for herself on social media, where she seems to spend a great deal of her time. Like Ocasio-Cortez, Goodlander understands how to play her chosen role in the drama of politics.

The first thing you will notice about Goodlander is that, like every girl boss, she is a calculating striver who seems to be operating from a script. Her career reads like a Hollywood sketch for the lead in a new television drama. The daughter of a rich local family, she started at Groton and then went to Yale. She joined the military to get what at the time seemed like an important credential. This was the peak of the forever war period, so every politician wanted that on their resume.

That is the thing about girl boss. In addition to being a relentless striver, she is just as relentless at box-ticking. For girl boss, it is never about accomplishing things in the conventional sense, as that is for peasants. Girl boss has a higher calling, so her focus is on ticking the boxes that the character requires. This is where the influence of Hollywood is clear. The women playing the girl boss character are following a script of sorts to create themselves as girl boss.

You see this in the post-college portion of her character profile. Her family were Bush Republicans, which is where she started ticking boxes. While she was in the Navy as an “intelligence officer,” which is the military term for desk jockey, she worked as a senior foreign policy advisor for Joe Lieberman and John McCain. Then she spent a year clerking at the Supreme Court and then a year at Skadden, a super-connected law firm that looks great on a political girl boss resume.

Frankly, if you were to describe the ideal millennial girl boss for politics, the resume of Maggie Goodlander would feel a bit over the top. Audiences might find this character to be too much of a Mary Sue, which is a young woman in films who is portrayed as free of weaknesses or character flaws. She always gets what she wants without ever having to suffer setbacks or experience self-doubt. The resume of Maggie Goodlander looks like it was written so the rest of the plot can happen.

Another feature of girl boss that you see with every iteration of the character is what you see in the bio of Ms. Goodlander. There is a lot of activity. Ms. Goodlander is a whirlwind of activity as a representative. Every day she is posting pictures of herself being girl boss somewhere. Her resume is one activity after another. She seems to have rushed from one ticked box to the other, as if having ticked the box, the only thing that mattered was moving on to the next box.

This is what makes girl boss so powerful and why she is proliferating throughout the managerial system. In managerialism, a resume is about where you were and what networks to which you are connected. It is never about accomplishments in the sense of leaving behind a product of your labor. Girl boss is the epitome of this mindset. When girl boss goes for the walk on the beach as part of the carefully planned photoshoot, she leaves no footprints in the sand.

This leads to the main flaw of girl boss. Anyone who must deal with girl boss in the wild knows why we invented a certain word that starts with “C.” Girl boss is just as relentless in her unpleasantness as she is about her ambition. That is because every relationship is a temporary means to an end. For girl boss, your value is in how you can help her tick the next box. If for some reason you are an impediment to ticking that next box, girl boss expects you to lose, just like all opponents of girl boss.

This is why girl boss always has that weird, synthetic face. It lacks the normal emotions we expect from a female of our species. Every picture of Maggie Goodlander looks like they stapled a smile onto a mask. That is because girl boss lacks anything resembling female compassion. Her mind is singularly focused on the game of going from one box to the next to become the ultimate girl boss. There is a reason no girl boss has a trail of former colleagues who speak well of her.

This is what makes girl boss the ultimate expression of managerialism. Success in the system is never about accomplishments in the tangible sense, because managerialism is a system that evolved to reduce risk. Accomplishing things brings risk, as new things bring new variables to manage. The makers and doers must be sublimated to the managers to minimize the risk they pose. This means the managers are the antidote to the doers and makers.

In such a system, never having done anything tangible is another one of those boxes on the resume, but this box must always remain unticked. Instead, the boxes for talking about those boxes and meeting about those boxes must be ticked. Girl boss is ideally suited for a world where everyone is expected to be good at forming consensus and sharing their feelings about things never allowed in the room. Girl boss makes the ideal manager in a system designed for managers.

Of course, girl boss also seems to be the ideal symbol of the end. The rise of girl boss has led to declining content from Hollywood. They made Snow White into girl boss, and audiences are still laughing at it. The sure sign a company is about to enter the death spiral is when girl boss arrives in the C-suites. The sudden rise of girl boss in Democratic Party politics comes as the party is on the ropes. President girl boss would surely mean the end of the American experiment.

For those looking for something positive out of girl boss, it is entirely possible that she is the Boudica of the alien tribe that rules America. Boudica was a queen of a British tribe who led a failed uprising against the Roman Empire in AD 60. She was a last-gasp effort to resist the Romans. Perhaps that is what we are seeing with the rise of girl boss in the Democratic Party. They are vying to go down in history as the last gasp of resistance to the forces of restoration.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Preachers

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Note: Behind the green door, there is a post about David Hogg taking control of the Democratic Party, a post about the younger generation of males, and no Sunday podcast as it was Easter. Subscribe here or here.

One of the amusing sideshows since Trump has taken power is the pearl clutching from the usual suspects about the law and process. The people who sat silent as lawfare was waged against Americans for the crime of holding unapproved opinions are now suddenly concerned with the rule of law. The people who took money from tech companies to remain silent about tech censorship are now carrying on as if they are dissidents because they no longer control the discourse.

Hypocrisy is a feature of man, and it has always had a central role in American politics because America is a nation of moralizers. The one thing we have always overproduced is preachers ready to wag their bony fingers at the people as they lecture them about their many moral failings. The United States is a giant outdoor revival tent where preachers take turns performing for the crowd. When not lecturing the locals, our preachers travel the world to lecture foreigners.

Preachers need to believe they are special, perhaps even called or chosen to lead the sinners out of sin into the land of salvation. You cannot think you are a wretch and at the same time be a preacher. You can be a wretch and confess your wretchedness to the people in the pews as part of your redemption. You can testify about your former wretchedness and how you rejoined the mass of ordinary sinners. You cannot preach unless you are sure you are something special.

After all, the point of preaching is to inform. The preacher not only knows the nature of sin, but he also claims to know the nature of grace. He claims to know the road that leads from sin to salvation and grace. If everyone had this knowledge, then there would be no need for the preacher. Everyone would be free to decide if they want to take the path to salvation or take some other path. This is why every preacher is sure he has been called to lead the sinner down the righteous path.

This is why the fallen preacher is a stock character in our morality tales. In a land full of preachers, we have a superabundance of preachers who turned out to be worse sinners than the people in the pews. Given that democratic politics is just a long running morality play, it is no surprise that our politics features the hypocrite, and the endless cries of hypocrisy are the Greek chorus of our politics. Democracy is a viper’s den of preachers and hypocrites hissing about hypocrisy.

This has been a defining feature of the Trump era. His every utterance seems to draw out the preacher-hypocrite. Here is Jonah Goldberg hilariously claiming he is what stands between the mean orange man and the sacred Constitution. He and his fellow cult members were chanting about the “unitary executive” back in the Bush years, when they intended that phrase to mean, “Ignore the laws.” After all, they preached, the righteous cause of forever war was too important for due process.

Goldberg is typical of the modern preacher. He is a mediocrity’s mediocrity who spends his days smearing people opposed to his cult. In the Bush years, he would preach about the need to rally to a clown like George Bush out of party loyalty. Those questioning this were disloyal deviationists or secretly in league with Old Scratch. When it was his turn to return the favor with Trump, he slanderously claimed Trump and David Duke were buddies in the secret KKK.

The most egregious example of the modern preacher is David French. This chinless weirdo is what not-for-profit politics produces. He imagines himself to be a blend of James Bond, Clarence Darrow, and Jesus Christ. His Twitter feed is dripping with sanctimony as he lectures the world about sin, but it is mostly about the righteousness of David French. It is no surprise that this ridiculous mediocrity is at the New York Times. It is the main chapel of our media.

These two festering lumps of mediocrity are famous examples, but the public square is littered with people who dream of one day standing in front of the masses, lecturing them about their failings. The Covid Karens of a few years ago made clear that behind the pleasant looking face of every stranger could lie the pursed lips of a vinegar drinking scold ready to pounce at your moment of weakness. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God named Karen from Human Resources.

The preacher plays a vital role in human society, but he must be locked up in his church where we can visit him for inspiration. The preacher provides inspiration when inspiration is needed to continue the task of living. In modern America, the preachers have been let out of their churches to run wild in our lives, making sure no one can enjoy the simple act of living. They nose about looking for sin and when none can be found they create chaos that can lead to sin.

The task before the country, if it is to escape this hell of proselytizing, is to herd the preachers back into their churches. Living is about trade-offs, the choice between practical benefits and equally practical costs. For a people to live, they must embrace living, not sit quietly while preached to about the sins of living. That is what we are seeing with the Trump administration. It is the long overdue effort to round up the preachers and put them back in their rightful place.

The price for this freedom will be the endless hypocrisy from the pearl clutchers and bony fingered ministers, now suddenly concerned about law and order. They were silent when the law was ignored but now pretend to care when the law must be ignored to restore order, the only ground in which the law can flourish. That means sidelining the preachers until the coast is clear. Then they can be let loose to preach the gospel of republican virtue to whoever will listen.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Radio Derb April 18 2025

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This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 01m14s Senator envy
  • 05m03s Marco favors free speech
  • 14m40s Lard, petard
  • 21m10s CultMarx on display
  • 31m37s How to deport millions
  • 33m33s Hungary blocks Prouds
  • 35m33s Remembering Benny Hill
  • 38m50s Signoff with Eddie Cochran

Direct Download, The iTunes, Podcast Addict, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Rumble

Full Show On Odysee 

Transcript

01 — Intro.     And Radio Derb is on the air! That was a fragment of Joseph Haydn’s Derbyshire March No. 1, just to give you a break from No. 2, and this is your enviously genial host John Derbyshire with news and views from the past week.

Let me begin by explaining that last adverb. I’m not by temperament an envious person. The Tenth Commandment is an easy one for me. I rarely find myself yearning for something that someone else possesses but I myself want to have. I’m too fatalistic.

In one respect, though, I do envy the people of Missouri. Let me start by explaining that. Continue reading →

My Robot Editors

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Note: I am taking a much needed day off to get some outside things done, which means starting before the cock crows. No time to write this morning, so this is a green door post, gifted to you on Good Friday. Happy Easter everyone.

For the last two weeks, I have been allowing AI to edit my posts. It is not a single AI but a team of AI. The editors are ChatGPT, OpenAI, Grok, and GabAI. Every post is fed into the maw for editing grammar and spelling. Sometimes I will feed a post into one, then take its output and feed it into another, and so on. I have also continued to use Word, which seems to be going insane.

One of the first things that jumps out is the AI tools will not simply fix grammar and spelling, no matter how you instruct them. Instead, it is a full rewrite that attempts to make the text like what was used to teach them. My guess is these tools attempt to consume everything on the internet as the baseline, but the starting place was probably many publicly available texts in every language.

Curiously, all the AI tools have an obsession with hyphens. If they are given a sentence like, “He jumped the fence, as he was a track athlete,” AI will try to rewrite the sentence with a hyphen between the two clauses. The results are often ridiculous, so I started adding a rule to avoid all hyphens. That means they change “twenty-two” to “twenty two,” but I can fix that more easily than the other option.

In truth, I could start with a longer list of rules and get a result like what you would get from your teacher in primary school. The output would be the original text with suggestions and corrections noted in the text. That requires far more work than simply handing it to a human and saying, “Proofread this for me.” The point here is to make the test apples to apples or as close as possible.

Another bit of weirdness is AI loves contractions. Every occurrence of “it is” will be changed to “it’s” unless you demand otherwise. This is a curious thing, as contractions are generally frowned upon. The style guides I have all say to avoid contractions unless they are in quoted text. Word will flag all contractions. For some reason, the AI editors have gone the opposite direction.

Here is where the basis for the AI knowledge bases comes into play. It starts with formal text and then continues to learn using what is online and fed to it. Casual writing will be littered with contractions, and since that is the bulk of what is online, the robots assume contractions are clearer and more concise. If everyone is jumping off the bridge, the AI editors will jump off the bridge too.

Probably the most amusing bit is none of the AI editors agree. I will feed a post into one and then feed the output into another, and so on. Every output is different from the others, and when you get back to the starting AI and input the last output, it spits out a different version from the first go. Like real editors, there is a desire with AI to change the text when no changes are warranted.

Another amusing bit is that the output from AI pasted into Word causes the Word spell and grammar check to have a stroke. Word has become almost unusable at this point, but it does a few things well. For example, it will change “have to” to “must,” which is better in terms of efficiency. Otherwise, Word often hates what comes out of the AI editors like it is an angry old schoolmarm.

For basic spelling and grammar, it is a useful tool as long as you do not mind it rewriting the text or you are willing to supply many limiting instructions. Is it better than having old school Word flag spelling and punctuation? It depends. If you are like me and have confidence in your style, it is not better. If you do not have confidence in your writing, then it provides a sense of security, which is not the worst result.

That is the point of sites like Grammarly. They are for people who probably should not have been taught to read but who have it in their head that they need to tell the world their opinions. These users can paste their text into the site, and the result is obviously better, and it comes with the approval of an authority. In a permission society like ours, most people need that pat on their head.

The banality of the output is something else I have tested. Instead of writing my post and then submitting it for editing, I have had the AI team write the post based on the points I supply and then asking it to use my site as a guide. This takes far more work than you would expect for some reason. I found I needed to think about what I was planning to write far more than I do when I do the writing myself.

Maybe it is just me, but when I write an essay, I am not entirely sure what I will be writing when I start off. I get going, and after a few minutes, I have a few paragraphs and a few ideas for what to do with it. This happens in a few cycles until I have about what I want for a daily post. Then I think about how to put a bow on it. This approach cannot work when using AI to write a post.

What I did instead is write a post and then use it as the basis of the prompts for AI to write an original post on the topic. With some tinkering, I can get a result that is pretty close to what I would write, but it takes much longer than writing it myself. Otherwise, the resulting text reads like a technical manual. There is a flatness to the writing that fails to engage the reader. Reading the result feels like work.

What this suggests is that the ceiling for AI may very well be the absolute middle of human creativity when it comes to communication. It will quickly write text that mimics a mediocrity at National Review. It can quickly produce audio that lacks the sort of variability that makes hearing one another enjoyable. For many things and most people, this is more than enough to do the job.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

The Long Retreat Continues

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A funny thing happened when Netanyahu arrived in Washington to tell the Trump administration about how they would proceed with Iran.  The Trump side told Netanyahu that his longed for war with Iran was not happening. Instead, the Trump administration was starting talks with Iran concerning a negotiated settlement to their nuclear program and the sanctions imposed on Iran. When Trump announced this during the press conference, Netanyahu looked like he had seen a ghost.

Netanyahu was poleaxed because he was sure he had maneuvered the Trump people into a corner on Iran. He thought he had done the same thing with the Biden people, but instead of an American strike on Iran, the Iranians launched their own missile strike and the Biden people looked the other way. With Trump he was sure he had a president who hated Iran as much as he did, but it turns out that Trump was leading Netanyahu on so he could buy time to make a deal with Iran.

It is a good example of how the Israel lobby, which backs Trump completely, is not the same as Israel. The two sides frequently disagree on what is best for Israel, and the Israel lobby typically prevails in these disputes. Given the source of funding for the Israel lobby, this is logical. For American Jews, Israel is their symbolic homeland, but it is not their actual home. It is a place where they send their children for the summer after graduation or perhaps where they take an occasional family trip.

For the Israel lobby, an agreement that fosters peace in the region and ensures the long-term security of Israel is the goal. They do not share Israel’s aspiration for a greater Israel or of subjugating local rivals merely out of spite. The manner in which Israel has conducted itself concerning Gaza has been detrimental to the Israel lobby, as it significantly undermines support for Israel among average Americans. Israel now has the lowest approval ratings among Americans since the issue has been surveyed.

This is also another one of those examples of how the second coming of Donald Trump is much better than the first one. No one saw the reproachment with Iran coming until it was about to happen. This meant that Trump did not discuss it publicly and ensured it remained a need-to-know matter among his trusted confidants. Consequently, the usual suspects could not leak it to the media. All those people who lost security clearances are no longer conduits to the Washington Post.

We see the same thing with Russia. No one outside of Trump and a few trusted people know what is happening in those dealings. No one knew Trump was planning direct talks until they were announced by both sides. Even now, no one has the slightest idea what the two sides are discussing. Instead, the media runs nonsense stories like this one fed to them through Keith Kellogg by the neocons. Team Trump has kept everyone off balance regarding Ukraine.

The essence of all this is not a change in policy with Trump but a transformation in his approach to governance. For instance, Trump has never been fond of Netanyahu. Worse yet for Netanyahu, Trump does not trust him. Similarly, Trump never forgot that Ukraine was central to his impeachment. Trump always wanted to do a deal with Russia and has always got along with Putin. What is novel this time is that Trump is far more astute in how he navigates the den of vipers that is Washington.

Regarding Iran, there is also the reality that no military solution exists. This has been made evident with the Houthis. The days of launching volleys of missiles at an adversary and achieve its objectives is over. To address the Houthi issue militarily would necessitate an invasion and an occupation. A military solution to Iran would require a million-man army and the risk of destabilizing the oil markets. It is not entirely clear that the United States could accomplish this, even if the will existed.

Instead, Trump has allowed the Israelis to believe that the Trump administration supported a strike on Iran’s nuclear and leadership centers. These stories were leaked to the media and then amplified by online geopolitical analysts. Meanwhile, Trump’s trusted advisors were utilizing backchannels to arrange direct talks with Iran, which occurred last week in Oman. There is a strong likelihood that Russia played a role in persuading the Iranians to attend the meeting.

What we may be witnessing are the results of a transformation in the Israel lobby and in Trump’s governing strategy. The same populist forces that spooked the oligarchs into supporting Trump’s political and economic reforms may have prompted the Israel lobby to reconsider its approach to Iran. If war is not an option, then another method must be found to secure Israel. The obvious solution is to resolve the Iran issue that has persisted for half a century.

In many ways Trump is the closing of a chapter in American history that started fifty years ago, and Iran is one part of it. The Iranian revolution was caused by the failure to manage the Israel issue properly. Fifty years ago, smart people warned about tilting to far in favor of Israel. The result has been fifty years of turmoil, including several major wars. That chapter in American history may finally be coming to close with the normalization of relations with Iran.

Of course, this is another indication that we are at the end of empire. Even if relations between the United States and Iran cannot be normalized, it is evident that the days of the American empire ruling over the region with absolute authority are over. The cost of empire has long surpassed the benefits to the American people, and that deficit is now disrupting domestic politics. What Trump represents is a dignified withdrawal from empire, rather than an ignominious one.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

European Apartheid

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The word “apartheid” is like every emotionally charged word in the English language in that the worst people abuse it. In South Africa, it had a real meaning, as it described a real system. The word means “apart” and described a system in which the ruling white population lived apart from the black population. In modern usage, it has come to mean any race-based social system. The “apartness” is not so much physical but more of a moral distinction.

The West may need to invent some new words for the multilevel sociopolitical system that is emerging, especially in Europe. The rule of law and equality under the law are being abandoned in favor of a system that is loosely based on American concepts of social justice and social vengeance. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is now a separate set of rules for the white population. Whites, especially white males, are now to be punished more harshly than nonwhites.

This is mostly a formalization of something that has existed informally since Tony Blair flooded the country with immigrants. If a Muslim were caught rioting or raping, he could get off with a warning in front of the right judge. A native Brit, on the other hand, could expect the maximum penalty, especially if he could be accused of holding the wrong opinions about things. This is very similar to what we see in the United States, except now it is formalized in UK law.

This is spreading all over Europe, and unlike the United States, it is eroding the entire concept of a rights-based society. For example, a woman named Lucy Connolly was sent to prison for three years for a Facebook post in which she protested the mass importation of hostile aliens. In the United Kingdom, the police spend their days scanning social media for unlawful posts by white Britons. Twitter is full of videos of police abusing white people for their speech.

The reason the Prime Minister is called “Two Tier Keir” is because he supports the two-tiered justice system that has emerged in the United Kingdom. It is a bizarre implementation of the apartheid system in that it has a separate legal system for natives and immigrants but also compels the natives to embrace the immigrants and their foreign ways. On Palm Sunday, Starmer was at a pagan shrine, celebrating a pagan ritual that happened to fall on the same day.

Almost forgotten now is Tommy Robinson, a street activist who opposes the importation of Muslims and other immigrants. He has been in jail for so long that people have forgotten about him, which is the point. No one seems to know why he is in jail, other than that he says things in public that the government says white people should never say, not even in private. In the United Kingdom, like many European Union countries, you can be sent to prison for private speech.

In fairness, the UK is not alone. Across Europe, the lights of liberal democracy have been extinguished. They regularly arrest and jail people for speech crimes, and they are now arresting opposition politicians. Marine Le Pen is the latest example. In Romania, they canceled elections until they could find a way to remove from the ballot the candidate most likely to win. The Europeans are quickly becoming the old Soviet Union, with better consumer goods imported from China.

What you see in Europe is a more subtle version of what is happening in the United Kingdom, and that is a racial divide in the law. Muslims in France do not have to worry about the police reading their social media posts. If you are a French farmer organizing a protest, you can be sure someone in your group is an agent of the state. The state does nothing about the flood of migrant crime but will throw a white YouTuber in jail for holding views the state says he is not allowed to hold.

America was heading down the same path, as the media and corporations were embracing these same authoritarian policies. Largely due to entrenched cultural opposition and the revolt of key oligarchs, this decline has been halted, and the new administration openly supports civil liberties. That speech by Vance was as much a signal to the American public as to the European political class. The days of de-platforming are over, so they claim.

The real test will be how the Trump administration deals with these countries that flagrantly abuse the rights of their citizens. Everyone understands that Asians have a different cultural tradition, one that does not include things like individual rights, the rule of law, and respect for public opinion. China is never going to be a liberal democracy, so there is no point in punishing them for it. The same is true for the countries of the Middle East or in sub-Saharan Africa.

Europe is a different matter. The only reason for the United States to care about Europe at all is that it is both the ancestor of our population and the source of the moral framework that defines the West. Europe has the same moral obligation to defend the ideals of liberalism as the United States. Clearly, the current European political class has no interest in maintaining liberal societies. The United Kingdom, in particular, is an egregious case, given its role in the evolution of liberalism.

During the Cold War, the United States had different relationships with countries firmly on the Western side than those on the communist side or not aligned. The starting point was always respect for the rights of the citizens. Even during the Cold War, the United States exerted pressure on South Africa to end its apartheid system on the grounds that it was a violation of Western morals. One can question the rationality of that, but at least foreign policy was on something of a moral footing.

If Trump is going to restore the rationality of American foreign policy, it must include a return to a policy of judging nations by how closely they respect our understanding of individual rights and liberties. If the United Kingdom wants favorable trade deals, for example, they must open their prisons and release their political prisoners. The same holds for the rest of Europe. Their prison system must be dismantled, and the laws penalizing speech must be repealed and condemned.

Otherwise, the United States will be in the contradictory position of punishing China for its lack of Western values, while ignoring the grotesque violations of those same values by Europe. A sense of moral obligation has always animated American policy, for good or ill, and the primary moral obligation of America is the defense of the Western tradition of rights, equality before the law and respect for public opinion. America needs to break apartheid Europe, just as it broke apartheid South Africa.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Another Point Of No Return

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Thirty years ago, a Ryder rental truck full of explosives detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 167 people and injured hundreds more. According to the official truth, the van was parked at the site by someone named Timothy McVeigh. While he did not act alone, he was the only person in the truck when it was parked at the site. A total of four people were arrested and charged with the deadliest domestic terrorist attack to date.

At the time of the attack, the public naturally assumed there were many people involved, as such a thing should require a lot of hands. There was also the assumption that foreigners were involved. By 1995, the United States had been dropping bombs on Muslims for at least a decade. It was not unreasonable to think that some of those Muslims decided to get some payback. According to the FBI, that was not the case at all and the whole thing was done by four people.

It turns out that this may not be entirely true. At the time, there were news stories claiming that two people exited the Ryder truck. Security cameras captured the parking of the thing and the blast. There was even a manhunt of sorts for the guy they named John Doe #2, but he was never found. Later, the FBI said there was never another guy and there was no video footage suggesting such a thing. The media, as they always do, took that to mean they should drop it.

It turns out that the FBI was lying. This long piece in The Federalist chronicles the long saga of trying to get that information from the government. Why the government would be hiding any information about a domestic crime that occurred thirty years ago is a question that can only have one answer. It is not as if there could be top-secret information in such a case. According to the story, the main reason the FBI is hiding this data is they were lying all along about John Doe #2.

At the time, it was not unreasonable for people to accept that the claims about another suspect were simply a mistake. After all, whenever a big event happens, there are all sorts of rumors circulating in the media. Most people at the time accepted that the media was biased and sloppy, but they trusted the FBI. Thirty years on and no one in their right mind trusts the FBI or the media. Decades of lies and many examples of framing innocent people will do that.

Just as important, we now have lots of examples where the FBI used informants or embedded agents to entrap people by tricking them into committing crimes or talking about committing crimes. Under Obama, the FBI helped sell weapons to the Mexican drug cartels, who used those weapons to kill Americans. Under Biden they tricked a bunch of dupes into the Whitmer kidnapping caper. Of course, the FBI tried to overturn the 2016 presidential election.

Considering what we know now, reasonable people are reasonable to wonder if there was not something similar happening with the Oklahoma bombing. The initial reports of a second man in the truck, then the denials and now the maximum effort to conceal evidence of the second man look a lot like how the government handled the Ray Epps situation after January 6th. Given the pattern, John Doe #2 was most likely an informant or an embedded agent.

Another curious thing about this case is that McVeigh was executed quickly, which does not happen in the United States. His trial started in April of 1997, and he was executed in June of 2001, the first federal execution in 38 years. Terry Nichols has been squirreled away in the prison system. The media makes no effort to reach him. Michael Fortier agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for his wife. They both went into witness protection.

The behavior of the Feds in this case also looks like their behavior in the Enrique “Kiki” Camarena case in the 1980’s. He was a DEA agent who was allegedly kidnapped by the drug cartels, but was most likely assassinated by the CIA, because he learned about the drug running and arms shipment to the Contras. It turns out that the American government was helping the Mexican cartel ship cocaine into the United States in exchange for help funding the Contras.

Of course, what we are seeing with the Oklahoma City Bombing case fits the pattern going back generations. The government is still fighting to hide Kennedy material, despite orders to release it. The Epstein material should have been released long ago, but it will never be released, mostly out of spite. Anything damaging to the government was destroyed long ago. In case after case we see that the government prefers to conceal rather than disclose, as a matter of policy.

There is that other pattern at work here as well. That is where the FBI creates crimes so they can then use them to promote their brand to the American public and extract more cash and privileges from Congress. At this point, it seems like the only thing the FBI does is lure people into criminal conspiracies. There are 38,000 people employed by the FBI and most of them are probably on social media trying to bait people into going along with a plot that the FBI can then solve.

It is why people are right to assume that the reason the FBI is blocking the disclosure of information about John Doe #2 is that like so many of their capers, this is one that spiraled out of control. McVeigh and Nichols were willing dupes that the FBI was happy to manipulate, but they also turned out to be clever and willing to actually go through with the caper before the feds could put the brakes on it. That is the generous interpretation of events. It could be worse than that.

Given what has been revealed just in the last ten years, the political class should be united in their desire to disband the FBI. There is no appetite for even mild reforms, as we see happening now. Trump put Kash Patel in charge, not because he will change the agency, but simply to prevent them from launching another coup against him like they did the first time. Trump’s “solution” to the FBI problem is to put thumbless idiots in charge of it.

Just as we saw last week with the financial markets in response to Trump’s very mild changes in tariff policy, the inability to address the problem with the secret police is another example of how it may be too late. The secret police were allowed to turn into this monster that is now bigger than its supposed master. Instead of the secret police serving the political class, the political class serves the secret police. This is another sign that we have blown past the point of no return.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!

Is It Too Late?

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Note: Behind the green door, there is a post about Russell Brand and what his case suggests about the state of the law, a post about using AI as an editorial team for the posts on this site, and the Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.

One of the questions rarely asked regarding the ongoing American crisis is whether we have passed the point where reform is possible. Few want to consider that possibility for obvious reasons. If reform through the regular political process is no longer possible, then only unpleasant alternatives remain. One of those alternatives is some form of collapse. Like Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, America may be headed over the cliff with nothing to prevent it.

Last week, we caught a possible glimpse of the answer. Trump rolled out his tariff regime, and the stock markets went wild. It was not just a global selloff; volatility was off the charts, which is worse than the decline itself. A steady selloff occurs during a correction when markets are overbought. A chaotic, erratic decline signals panic setting in among the algorithms. It means their code cannot interpret the conditions they are programmed to use for trading.

Just as things began to stabilize, the bond market started to “get the yips”, as Trump noted on Thursday. No one in the mass media understands this, so they kept claiming the bond market crashed, which is far from accurate. The issue was that market players were dumping treasuries. It is unclear why, for instance, the Japanese central bank was selling treasuries. This uncertainty is just as worrisome as the actual dumping, so everyone was spooked.

Typically, the reason for dumping treasuries is a liquidity issue, either in the system as a whole or in a segment of it. In this case, the consensus is that hedge funds were raising cash due to the market decline. That could be true, but it is also possible the basis trade was unraveling. This is when hedge funds bet on tiny changes in treasury yields—a major way they generate profits within the system.

Here is how it works: Imagine you believe the value of an asset like a treasury will decline over the next six months. You hold this asset, but it is collateral for another transaction. You cannot sell it now, so you agree to sell it in the future at the current price rather than the market price at that time. If the price surges, you lose potential profits when the contract expires, but if the price drops as expected, you are protected from those losses.

There is much more to it, but that is the gist, and this happens across markets for everything, even treasuries, which have been very stable. Even earning a tiny percentage on these transactions can net millions for a fund handling tens of billions in trades. In fact, the financial system relies on clever quants coding models to exploit these small discrepancies between current and future prices to generate wealth.

When Trump’s tariffs caused this system to go haywire, triggering a panicked demand for cash, he had no choice but to back off. It was not that the bond market revolted due to a philosophical disagreement with the policy. Rather, this massive system is a house of cards that cannot tolerate even minor disruptions. Trump’s tariff regime should not have caused chaos, but the fact that it did suggests even small changes are no longer viable.

That is not the end of it. The central bank could mitigate this by injecting enough cash to resolve the liquidity issue. In fact, it can inject enough to counter deliberate revolts. You cannot beat the Fed. This should have happened last week, but Jerome Powell either refused to act or was too inept to grasp the situation. He has been the worst Fed chair since Arthur Burns, so incompetence is a strong possibility.

That said, the Fed held an emergency meeting just before Trump announced his tariff plan last week, likely in response to it. Given the Federal Reserve’s composition and its attitudes toward the American public, it is possible they intended to undermine the process. The Bank of England toppled Liz Truss’s Tory government, so it is not unthinkable. The head of the Bank of England at the time was Mark Carney, who is now the dictator of Canada.

This would imply that normalizing the American economy is no longer possible, at least not through standard political processes, because the entrenched interests profiting from the system will not allow it. That is what we will discover in the next ninety days as the Trump team navigates this challenge. Bessent has suggested they will use this time to strike individual deals with countries rather than unilaterally imposing a tariff schedule.

Of course, they could also have Jerome Powell killed, thus sending a message to the parasite class that they must fall in line or else. They never take no for an answer, so this approach never works. The Russians had to execute a lot of oligarchs before the rest finally fell in line with the new program. Falling in line usually meant fleeing the country with their cash. Maybe it does not have to come to that with the bankers, but last week was not a positive sign.

What the events of last week show is that normalizing American economic policy is not going to be easy within the current process. It also suggests it may not be possible without radical approaches to implementation. We may have reached the point where even with enough coercion, the system cannot be reformed. We may have blown past the point of no return as far as the political and economic order, so what lies ahead is chaos no matter what is done.

If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!